


Cherished

by Hopeless_1322



Series: Cecelia Beesly-Halpert-Schrute [1]
Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Domestic Fluff, Gen, Holy crap - Freeform, Kid Fic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, this is by far the happiest thing I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 17:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16202633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeless_1322/pseuds/Hopeless_1322
Summary: Cecelia Beesly-Halpert-Schrute will tell anyone willing to listen to her that she has the absolute coolest family ever.OR: CeCe reflects on what each of her parents does for her.





	Cherished

Cecelia Beesly-Halpert-Schrute will tell anyone willing to listen to her that she has the absolute coolest family ever. 

Sure, all of her friends seem to think that they _also_ have the coolest family ever, but CeCe knows that her family is the actual coolest...even if the competition is stiff.

Felicity’s mommy and daddy own a pet shop, which is admittedly pretty cool, and Madeline's mama runs a bakery, which is also pretty damn cool, but despite the lack of puppies and fresh baked pies in her life, CeCe knows that she has the best family. After all, she has the best mommy, daddy, and papa ever. 

“How can you have a mommy, a daddy, _and_ a papa?” Her friend, Hannah, asks the first time CeCe talks about how her parents tuck her in at night. “Do you mean you have a stepdad like Madeline’s cousins?”

CeCe is fast to set her friend straight, because, _no_ , she doesn’t have a stepdad, she has a papa. Papa is not a step-papa, he’s just a papa, like how mommy and daddy are just mommy and daddy. 

No one seems to understand at first, and even adults are caught off guard when CeCe talks about her family. One such adult is her best friend Emily’s mom.

“Do you mean your stepdad, honey?” Emily’s mom asks kindly from behind the kitchen counter, where she’s making her daughter and her daughter's playmate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

“No, mom, she means her papa,” Emily pipes in before CeCe can say anything. “She has three. Her three last names are from her mommy, daddy, and papa.”

Emily’s mother, like most of the adult people in CeCe’s life, simply smiles and nods along. Whether or not she actually believes or understands is unknown, as is whether or not she’s uncomfortable by this revelation, but CeCe doesn’t even bother to think about it. She doesn’t need to, because she knows that she has the best family ever.

Even if Emily’s mom cuts peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into neat, little triangles (which is much cooler than the messy, half-crushed rectangles she's served at home).

Cece’s own mommy is an artist who works out of a tiny studio in the back of the house. The best part of Mommy's job is that she illustrates books, beautifying the covers and giving the silly stories an even sillier visual aid. Whenever CeCe’s Mommy is given a new story to glamorize with her art, Uncle Michael always makes sure to give CeCe a free copy with a doting message of some sort scribbled inside of the front cover.

This means that CeCe always has new bedtime stories for daddy to read to her.

“Your mommy sure can draw,” Daddy will often say as they flip through her newest book. “I like the purple poodles all balanced on top of the unicycle. What about you, princess?”

CeCe always likes how her mommy draws and colors the heros and settings in her books, especially all of the animals and starry nighttime skies. She hopes that someday she’ll be as good of an artist as her mommy is. Thankfully, CeCe’s mommy is more than happy to help her daughter reach this goal, and the two of them spend many an afternoon finger painting and drawing cartoon characters on the back porch.

“Look at what our aspiring artist made this afternoon!” Mommy will always exclaim with pride when daddy or papa gets home. “This is definitely a refrigerator masterpiece, don’t you think?”

Sometimes, when the fridge is completely covered in drawings of kitten/puppy hybrids and water paint, cotton candy landscapes, CeCe will make a drawing or painting especially for one of her dads.

Daddy always looks proud as a politician when his little girl hands him a painting of an indistinguishable animal or misshapen tree. Daddy brings CeCe’s artwork into his office, and he tells her that they brighten up the dreary place.

Papa is also always happy to receive a CeCe original, and he, too, brings them into his office space. The first time CeCe handed her papa a drawing, one of a camel with not two, but three humps, he started to cry. CeCe was scared, as papa never, _ever_ cried. Sometimes mommy cried, and daddy, too, but never papa.

CeCe never got to ask papa why he cried though, as mommy had been fast to swoop in and amend the situation with hugs and soft murmurs that CeCe couldn’t quite decipher.

Mommy is good at giving comforting hugs, and daddy is too. Anytime CeCe has a nightmare, she doesn’t hesitate to crawl into her parents’ bed, as she’s always a welcome guest. Mommy will hold her close while daddy presses kisses to her cheeks and forehead. 

If the nightmare is particularly scary, papa is enlisted to check inside of the closet and under the bed for monsters.

“There’s no such thing as monsters, Cecelia,” Papa will tell her as he lowers himself to the floor with a grunt, peeking beneath her bed. “This is ridiculous.”

Papa always says that checking for monsters is ‘ridiculous’ and ‘foolish’, but he always does it anyways. If the monster hunt doesn’t work, he’ll crawl into CeCe’s cramped twin bed and hold her until she goes back to sleep.

Papa can be gentle like mommy, too, when he needs to be.

Just like how daddy can be gentle, too. 

Daddy is always tired when he gets home from work, exhausted from a day of answering and returning extremely boring phone calls, but he _always_ scoops CeCe up in his arms and spins her around until she’s red in the face and laughing. He always reads her a bedtime story, too, no matter how close he is to drifting off. 

Daddy _always_ pulls through, and he always tells CeCe that he loves her before kissing her goodnight and before leaving for work.

Mommy and Papa always tell CeCe that they love her, too. CeCe never has any doubts that she’s loved, as she’s always being told so. But even if daddy, papa, and mommy all suddenly stopped telling her how much they love her, CeCe would still know.

If daddy didn’t love her, her wouldn’t hold her against his chest in the evenings and read her bedtime stories, nailing the silly voices with the finesse of an actor and only ever pausing to press the occasional kiss to her head.

If mommy didn’t love her, she’d stop cuddling CeCe in her lap while they experiment with colorful paints and make messes and masterpieces together.

If papa didn’t love her, he’d stop checking for monsters under the bed and letting CeCe use his action figures in her doll house.

CeCe knows that she has the best family, and Cecelia Beesly-Halpert-Schrute also knows very well that she’s loved.


End file.
